My school IT department wants to move to thin client, and has had a lot of problems with Windows Multipoint Server 2011. And my librarian saw me using Ubuntu, and mentioned it to the department. As he too uses Ubuntu. So I'm working on setting up thin clients in a test lab, to see if it can be done. Wish me luck!

"Neutrinos are perhaps the most enigmatic particles in the universe. These tiny, ghostly particles are formed by the billions in stars and pass through us constantly, unseen, at almost the speed of light. Yet half a century after their discovery, we still know less about them than all the other varieties of matter that have ever been seen.In this engaging, concise volume, renowned scientist and popular writer Frank Close gives a vivid account of the discovery of neutrinos and our growing understanding of their significance, also touching on some speculative ideas concerning the possible uses of neutrinos and their role in the early universe."

and

Massive: The Missing Particle That Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science about the search for Higgs.

"What gives objects mass? Guardian science correspondent Sample explains the current theory behind this tantalizing question, a theory based on a mysterious, fundamental particle called the Higgs boson, which cannot be broken down into smaller particles and imbued matter with mass right after the Big Bang. The theory, developed by Peter Higgs in 1964, was elegant and neatly filled in a hole in the list of elementary particles--but the Higgs boson could only be found with particle accelerators much more powerful than those then in existence. Physicists in Europe and the U.S. dueled to build such an accelerator but have yet to isolate the Higgs boson. Inconsistent funding, some name-calling, wild publicity over the possibility of a superpowerful accelerator turning into a "doomsday machine," expensive lab accidents and acts of sabotage create a roller-coaster of a tale. Sample keeps the physics accessible, but the real pleasure is in the personalities and drama he reveals behind the hunt for one of the most elusive objects in the universe."

A chemist suffers retrograde amnesia after being caught up in an explosion while making an illicit somatic hallucinogen that causes the user to relive memories of touch. I have trouble actually reading because the man uses language so well, it stumps me. I find myself just looking at the text and enjoying the rhythm and imagery contained in it, and the story matter passes me by!

Just finished Zero Day by Mark Russinovich and Daemon by Daniel Suarez. I'm reading Suarez's second in the series: "Freedom". Daemon was the better read but I'll have to complete Freedom to bring the story to a close. And for my money... Russinovich is a better writer. Zero Day was awesome.

Well... I've reached the half-way point in the Jobs' bio (it's a long read) and can only say: Wow! This genius was seriously flawed... an almost disturbed man. He was a visionary (not a particularly knowledgeable man when it came to engineering) and a man who had a sense for style and design beyond that of his contemporaries. But he was also a rude man who swore at fellow workers, threatened them, fired them without any regard for their families or their feelings and even treated his own children (at times) in a cold, detached way. Surprisingly Jobs endorsed the book before he passed, saying that he did not want his life whitewashed but would rather the truth came out. It's a shocking portrait, I'll say that.